


The Alliance Project

by musesmistress



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesmistress/pseuds/musesmistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth has a plan, but the Ancients had one too and a tendancy to leave things... active!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Alliance Project

**Author's Note:**

> To paranoidangel42 - I hope this lives up to your expectations :)  
> Merry Christmas
> 
> Thanks to my wonderfully fast beta Falcon_Horus (hugs)

Elizabeth was pacing and for the life of him, John couldn’t remember a moment of diplomacy that she hadn’t started out this way. Nervous and looking as though she was ready to bolt before they even got started. He had to smile though because he knew her too well not to know what was coming. As soon as the gate started to dial in, she would stop, straighten herself, square her shoulders and a calm would fall complete with blank expression. As if on cue the gate started up and John turned to give Ronon a knowing smile as Elizabeth paused, moved back to stand with them, straightened herself and set her shoulders.

“Stop smirking at me,” she said and John snapped back to look at her. She hadn’t turned to face him.

“I wasn’t smirking at you,” he said trying for a nonchalant tone. “I was smirking at Ronon.”

“Then stop smirking behind my back,” she said just as the gate locked and the wormhole established. He had to bite back the urge to tell her to turn around as someone stepped through and took in their current surroundings.

The planet they had selected for the meeting was empty as far as they could detect anyway. They knew too well that not everything in this galaxy was as it seemed and that made John a little wary about the whole situation. He and Ronon were Elizabeth’s only protection here and there were twelve people, each with their own pair of guards, coming for the alliance meeting. Elizabeth had made the point repeatedly that it was an “alliance” meeting, as in, they were already in an alliance with these people. It wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest to start trouble now. He had to admit, she had a point.

Prior to contacting all of their allies, John and his team plus three other teams had started looking for a world they could use. This one, found by Lorne’s team, was the most suitable for what they needed; the only downside they could find was that the oxygen was a little heavier than they were used to, but not uncomfortably so.

The gate stood to one side of a large clearing. A few metres behind the gate the dense forest of trees started, but the further around the clearing they went the thinner the numbers became and in some places the thinner the trunks too. John knew that off to their right, about 20 minutes walk away, there was a beach and ocean for as far as the eye could see. The report had said the planet consisted of three patches of land, the one they were on being the largest and aside from the twenty minutes in one direction to the sea, it was a minimum of twelve hours on foot in all the others. There had been nothing special on scanners, no life aside from animals and the other two islands were mostly mountains or dormant volcanos.

“Baden, Nola,” Elizabeth greeted the first of their guests. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting us,” Nola replied with a smile. She took in the surroundings as her and Baden’s guards moved down to join Ronon.

“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” Elizabeth extended. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where we are meeting this afternoon. There are refreshments available.”

John turned with her but didn’t follow. He knew these people had been given a rocky introduction to the Atlantis expedition thanks to John and Rodney’s ignorance that a simple game could put two real cultures at war. But each party had worked hard to create a peaceful co-existence on their world and Atlantis continued to check on them regularly. It would never stop worrying him that the Ancients had managed to set up a system of control like they had with these two people.

Elizabeth returned to the gate with a smile on her face, ready to face the next of their invited guests. Two down, ten more to go. John started a countdown as the gate dialled again and they greeted Queen Mara, a woman John knew a little too well. He tried hard to hide the awkwardness he felt when the attractive blonde smiled coyly at him. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at him after escorting her to the tent and he could tell she was questioning something he’d said more than a year ago.

Edina and her single guard appeared a moment later. Although her world was in chaos after a Wraith culling, she had not wanted to miss the meeting but had left her second guard to help clean up and make repairs. On her heels Hajin arrived and John couldn’t help but straighten as the little man appeared. John’s team hadn’t been the ones helping on their planet when they joined the alliance, but he had met him once since that and couldn’t help the lollipop guild song popping into his head even now. Short and stout, as the whole of his planet was, they chose to wear bright colours and curled toe shoes. The only thing missing was the bright coloured hair and high pitched voices. Elizabeth had to slap him on the back of the shoulder when she caught him humming the song on her return.

Keras arrived next, his guards two children John remembered fondly for their annoyance of Rodney McKay. Cleo and Castor, now a few years older, still smiled and bounced a little when he snuck them chocolate bars on their way to Ronon. Then Goran arrived; despite not having a bad experience with the man, his memory of Ellie and the retrovirus still haunted him. Teyla appeared next, Halling and another man as her guards even though she knew only too well they were not needed. Elizabeth had insisted she bring two to make a show that the Athosians were not ruled by Atlantis.

Minister Alduran appeared with twice as many guards and John straightened instantly. The terms of the meeting had been specific to create equality. For someone to show up with something other than stated was an act of defiance and Elizabeth had warned him and Ronon that anyone who went against the terms would likely cause trouble throughout the proceedings. Secretly he had hoped no one would break the rules, but here was one such man. A man that John frankly wasn’t surprised had doubled his guard. His ego was matched only by that of Rodney and that itself was a frightening thing. Ronon scowled at them as they approached but John caught the apology of one of the men and knew they had argued to keep the peace. Meanwhile, he listened as Elizabeth gave the Minister a first talking to about the terms of their arrangement. She didn’t back down from what she had said going so far as to instruct Ronon on her way back to the gate that two of the Minister’s men were to remain at the gate at all times.

Chancellor Lycus appeared and John was pleased that the now year old settlement was flourishing, though he could have done without the volcanic activity joke the man made. Following him almost immediately and barely giving Elizabeth a chance to return was Queen Maria. They had met her shortly after the Storm on Atlantis and the Genii’s attempt to take over and for the life of him, John still wished they had met these people before that event simply so they could have gone to them for help instead of the Genii. Elizabeth barely spared a moment to ask about the Queen’s three daughters, Mardola, Flora and Harmony.

“You looked those names up before we left, didn’t you?” John said when she stopped beside him again. Elizabeth only smiled slyly at him before turning to the gate to wait for their final guest.

“I hope you have not wasted my time to make another attempt at getting the Potentia from us,” Loak said the second he was through the gate.

“Absolutely not,” Elizabeth replied. “I have eleven other guests here, Loak. I wouldn’t invite everyone to watch me fail again.” Her smile and acceptance that she would in fact fail once again made the man laugh shortly and move down the steps to be greeted officially. As they turned to the tent, John huffed out a deep sigh. This was going to be a long day, but thankfully not all the food and drinks were inside the tent. He moved over to join Ronon with Loak’s guards.

\----

Elizabeth followed Loak into the tent and moved over to join Nola and Baden, who were still standing near to each other. She had to admit it looked as though hours of talks between them with either herself, Kate Heightmeyer or both had worked well to give the two nations a peaceful co-existence once again. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting for so long,” Elizabeth said to the pair. At this point, nearly an hour had passed already since they only had one gate and eleven planets dialling in.

Nola nodded in acceptance of the apology. Elizabeth was starting to really worry that this would be a waste of time, but it was an idea that should prove useful and fruitful to all the parties gathered and she had to keep reminding herself of that.

Looking around the room she took in the table of food and drinks at the back of the tent right behind her chair. When discussing seating arrangements and layouts of the tent, John had insisted she not be sat with her back to the opening. It had taken a lot of persistence from him, but she had eventually relented. The end of the table facing the tent flaps were purposely left empty so that no one would sit opposite or in opposition to Elizabeth

The simple table in the middle had large jugs of ice water lining the middle and 13 glasses beside each of the name place cards they had set out. Note paper and a pencil had been placed at all of the positions just in case someone wanted to make notes they could take home with them. On top of the notebook was a small packet which contained an explanation of the plan and a sketch done by Major Lorne of a possible layout of the area in front of the gate. Although she had spent most of the time going back to the gate, nothing on the main table seemed to have been disturbed and the crowd around seemed content to indulge in a moment of talk with other people in the same alliance, though it couldn’t last for long or else they would be here well into the dark. Stepping up to the chair at the head of the table, Elizabeth spared a glance through the tent flap before clearing her throat.

“If you’d like to take your seats, we can begin.” There was a bit of hustle as they moved to their seat, most of them having already worked out where they were sitting and a few of them shifting papers around to see what they had been given. When silence finally fell, Elizabeth rested her hands on the back of her chair, having decided to stand for the beginning of the meeting. “A little over a month ago, one of our off-world teams came across a world that was about to be culled. When the culling began, the team had the chance to dial out and move people to safety but it quickly became apparent that the people of the village had nowhere to go. The decision to dial Atlantis came too late and the Wraith blocked their escape.” She paused here to compose herself for the next part. “We lost two men in that attack and the Wraith destroyed all but a handful of the world’s inhabitants. Those people are currently living with the Athosians on the mainland of Atlantis along with three other societies that we arrived too late to help or we’ve had no luck getting them a new location.

“However, there is a solution. All of us are at threat from the Wraith and we can work together, if not to prevent the attacks, then to at least survive their cullings. The planet we are standing on is one we’ve found in the last two months. It has no inhabitants and the only indigenous life here are the animals in the forests.

“What we would like is to set this land up as a safe haven. Each of us would play a part in its maintenance, working together to continuously man areas that are set up and keep things running. They can then contact any of us for help depending on either a rotation or the current need.

“In your pack there is a sketch of a potential layout of the area. This is just an idea of what we could do.” Elizabeth took the time to half fill a glass with water and take a sip while they studied the drawing. “Between us, agriculture, crop maintenance and harvesting would be easy and for any of us that would like to learn new methods then it can be arranged that they share their time here with any of the other worlds in the alliance. The same applies to protection details, medical and anything else we include here.”

“For what purpose?” Queen Mara asked honestly.

Elizabeth smiled at the young queen. “Mainly that we have somewhere to escape to…” She paused momentarily when she heard a shout outside. “We can use the location to build up food supplies that can be used to help during harsh winters or after cullings so none of us go…” She tapered off as several more shouts reached them and she and several of the guests got to their feet. “Hungry,” she finished before making her way around the table. She had almost made it to the opening when the ground gave a shudder and she was sent staggering back into Teyla.

Teyla steadied her with a hand on Elizabeth’s back as shouts from around the room added to the pounding in her chest. It was only a few seconds before she could move away from the Athosian and make it to the entrance and step out in the afternoon sun as if nothing had happened.

Outside there was no one around. Even the two who had been told to remain at the gate had vanished into the forest. Elizabeth turned towards more shouting and walked towards the trees aware that Teyla was on her heels and the others not far behind.

“Weir, stop.” Ronon’s harsh tone made her freeze and she turned her head to her left to look at him, standing just inside the treeline. “There’s some sort of force field right in front of you.” Carefully, Elizabeth reached a hand out in front of her and felt the tingle before her fingers touched the energy barrier. To her left Ronon jabbed a knife at it and was forced a few steps back.

“What happened?” Elizabeth asked, turning on the spot and using a hand to guide her along the field towards Ronon. “Why did the guards move away from the tent?”

“One of the guys from Ardia was injured,” Ronon said, stepping back up to the force field as several of the other guards moved out of the forest to join him.

“You brought me here to kill my men?” Alduran burst out. Elizabeth ignored him and was thankful when Teyla moved away to talk him down as he started rambling about time wasting and vicious unprovoked attacks.

“There’s a few more of those devices scattered around,” one of them reported. “Sheppard said Beanti is gonna be okay but he doesn’t think he’ll get much use from his arm if we don’t get him back to Atlantis soon.”

“No one from my world is going back to Atlantis,” Alduran spat and Elizabeth rounded on him.

“Do you have the technology on your world to save an arm, Minister?” The man remained silent, his mouth open and face completely red. “I didn’t think so. We do and we are going to help him.”

“If all of the guards are on the outside of the barrier, then we are the only ones able to use the gate,” Nola pointed out.

“Within which case I want to leave. Now,” the minister demanded.

“And abandon not just your injured man, but the other three?” Teyla asked giving a look that dared him to walk away if he was such a coward.

“What devices?” Elizabeth asked at last.

“Not sure, they’re ancient with writing on them.” Ronon shrugged and she understood that to mean he had no idea what it said. “They only went for Beanti when he got close with his energy weapon. I can’t get close to it either.” He tilted his gun towards her to remind her of his type of weapon. “Everyone else is fine though.”

“Defensive?” She questioned and he nodded. “The storage crate near the gate has spare notebooks and pencils. If you can reach it, someone can go and copy the writing for me.” 

“Are you insane?” The minister challenged. “You are sending one of our men up to a device that injured one of my soldiers?”

“I’ll do it,” a short female guard from Kafra piped up. Elizabeth turned to Hajin and he nodded his consent.

“Alright, let’s go see if we can get the notebook,” Elizabeth instructed.

They started back towards the gate, Elizabeth purposely taking the walk around the edge of the barrier with Ronon. She needed more information if she was going to keep this under control. They weren’t just at risk of losing one guard, or even the planet as their base, but all the alliances here could turn away from Atlantis if things weren’t handled just right.

“Where’s John?” she asked as the group of visitors moved far enough ahead.

“With Beanti. He’d managed to stop the bleeding when I got there but the guy was in shock.” 

“I’ll dial Atlantis, get Carson here with a medical team so they can go straight to him as soon as we get past the barrier. Someone needs to tell John not to move him to avoid making the injury worse.” Without her or Ronon needing to, two of the guards from two different planets moved away from the barrier with a nod and vanished into the trees. She quirked a brow at how quickly they had accepted the command.

Ronon stopped a few steps later and let the rest of the guards move on. They could see from where they stood that the female guard had gathered the note paper and pencil and started off into the forest with one of Baden’s men behind her. When she turned back to Ronon he was smirking and she narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

“I told them all two things when they arrived. If something goes wrong, we pair up and never separate to wander the forest.” He paused and forced her to ask “and,” before continuing. “And you were a higher power than any chancellor or queen. In any emergency situation, your rules and orders came first.”

“That’s a dangerous move to make right now.” The chances of one of these people being told she was higher up than they were could cause problems, but she knew what Ronon had done. He’d given her complete power of all the guards, even over John and himself.

“Good thing I made it earlier then,” Ronon said sarcastically before moving away from the barrier.

\----

The gate failed to dial. Three people had tried their home address and everything went smoothly until the final chevron would fail to lock. Minister Alduran had burst into fits of shouts, screaming at her that she had caused this and threatening to bring down whatever wrath he could on Atlantis. She listened to all of it and when he finally ran out of steam she suggested he calm down and asked Teyla to get him a drink.

“I know this isn’t what anyone expected and frankly you’re not alone. Two of my teams surveyed this planet and found nothing beyond the wildlife.”

“I take it Ronon wasn’t on one of those teams?” Chancellor Lycus asked.

She shook her head. “No. At the time, he and Teyla were trading off-world for seeds we could use to plant here. I was hoping that if the plan went ahead I would have enough to start us off without dipping into resources some of you might not be able to spare.”

“You put a lot of effort into this idea,” Queen Maria said. This was the first time she had spoken up during the whole event. As they had tried to dial the gate she had stayed in the background waiting patiently and silently.

Elizabeth smiled. “On my world, Earth, there was a great politician by the name of Adrian Pearse. I got to work along side him once in my early political career and he taught me a wide range of things that have and will always help me. One of those things was to be prepared, think of everything, every outcome, everything that can go wrong, every question people could ask, even if that means sitting down in a room of friends and setting the scenario and seeing what comes up. He told me one morning before a meeting that the only way you can convince people something is right and good for them is to get everything ready, be there with a presentation, samples, even sketches if you have. Do all the leg work so that those you are talking to won’t have to do much, not even think. He even used the method on me a few days later trying to convince me that one particular fruit was the only fruit you ever needed to eat to be healthy. He didn’t know at the time that I’m allergic to the fruit he used, they would kill me, but he convinced me.”

The queen chuckled at the story and several of the others were smiling at her. Elizabeth had given away two things to them and perhaps one day they would use them against her, but for now she didn’t mind showing them that she was human and had started somewhere small.

“Liz’beth,” John called, appearing at the barrier with the female of Hajin’s guards.

“Everything alright?” Around her several of the dignitaries got to their feet in anticipation.

“Yeah, I gave Beanti a shot of morphine for the pain and to keep him calm. Two of his colleagues are with him as well as Majitin.” He nodded at Hajin to show his helpful guards were appreciated right now. She watched him swallow before he continued. “You know how good my Ancient is, right?”

“Let me guess, you got one word,” she teased and he nodded looking like a scolded child. “You really need some lessons in Ancient.”

“Hey, most of the stuff I deal with has numbers on it. I’m good at numbers.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes at him. “And I have Rodney or you for the rest.” He held up the notepad. “Keomi’s drawings could rival Lorne’s,” he commented at the precision used to draw the writing and at his side the shorter guard punched him in the leg, making him wince. He looked down at her before pointing to a word on the page. “Defensive.”

Elizabeth’s eyes fixed on the word. He was right, and she quickly translated in her head before adding; “The defensive systems nodule is controlled only by the…” She couldn’t get the last word just yet. It looked similar to network but that didn’t sound right with the rest. She was good with most words but this was half a page of text to translate and she needed time with some of the words. “Prop it against something close to the barrier. I’ll translate it. If you find any more writing….”

“I’ll send Keomi with a new notebook.” He gave the guard a smile which she returned easily.

“Keep me updated on the situation out there,” she said accepting a notepad from Teyla who had anticipated her need. John gave a cocky salute before moving away with Keomi.

\----

“Minister, please…” Elizabeth tried for the third time.

“I will not be forced into a so-called co-operative with people who can’t even be honest with us. Now I demand you shut down this system, return my guards to me and let me leave this planet.”

“Minister, if I had the ability to do that, believe me, your world would be the first I would dial.” Elizabeth’s patience was wearing thin. He had done nothing but accuse her of setting up their current situation in order to force them into her plan. “We only surveyed this planet once and for an admittedly short period of time, but I assure you that none of this was planned and you are under no obligation to remain here or in the alliance. If you wish to leave, please translate the text you have been keeping me from and shutdown the system yourself.” She glared at him daring him to reply but all he could do, was scowl back for a moment before storming off and vanishing into the tent. Elizabeth spared a moment to look at Teyla and watched as she thankfully moved off to talk to the man. Letting out a sigh, she moved back to the barrier and her abandoned notebook and sat back down on the grass.

“The energy automated protection system is activated around a specified area….” Elizabeth re-read from the notebook as she checked it against the drawing.

“Assumably the gate and clearing,” Mara offered. She was standing a few paces behind Elizabeth.

Brow creased, Elizabeth turned to look at the woman for a moment before looking out across the clearing. Keras and Nola were standing on the other side of their available space, the barrier stopping them from reaching the forest roughly ten feet behind them. She turned the other way as Hajin tested a hand out towards the forest, the barrier wasn’t there to stop him and that made Elizabeth curious. She got up, turned and took a step towards Keras before stopping to thank Mara.

“Keras.” He smiled at her as she approached. “Could you do something for me?” He only nodded in reply, so she continued. “I need to know where the barrier is, if it goes into the forest. Can you find a way to mark the lineside of the barrier?”

“Of course.” She thanked him as he moved away and she watched for a minute as Nola went with him before returning to the translation.

“The energy automated protection system is activated around a specified location….” Elizabeth repeated. “Assuring the safety of anyone within… superficies… surface, area, within the area.” She scanned ahead in the text mentally taking in the technical style and all the words she had no hope of translating without her translation dictionary that was sadly back in Atlantis. “The defensive systems nodule is controlled only by the…” she read from the end of the text. “Uretiaculus,” she read aloud and let out a frustrated breath.

“Problems?” John said, making her jump, and giving her a grin that told Elizabeth he had been watching her for a few minutes at least.

“Uretiaculus doesn’t make much sense. It’s almost two words stuck together. Utriculus, which means uterus and reticulum, which is reticule or netting.”

“Uterus? Really?” John exclaimed. Elizabeth could only nod. “They use reticulum or similar spellings of the word for ‘network’ but I can’t understand why they mixed another word in.”

“I assume you want a better answer than ‘to create a new word’,” John said with a grin that made her want to slap him. Lucky for him there was a barrier between them and she could only glare and start formulating a punishment for later. “What are Keras and Nola doing?” He asked a moment later.

“Mapping the barrier,” she half said, turning back to the translation.

“Why?” John asked, elongating the word for emphasis. Elizabeth looked up at him before turning to look at the litter of paper around the edge of the barrier.

“Because I think it’s been displaced. I think it should be around the clearing, but we can’t get to the other side of the gate.”

John didn’t reply so Elizabeth returned her attention to the translation, working out how to adjust the thing that controlled the barrier. Above her, John started playing with the field, watching as the green tone dripped down from his fingers. She had to stop to watch him as they got in her way.

“It’s like you’re trapped in the Matrix and I’m not aloud to take the red pill.”

“Matrix,” Elizabeth said, watching as John stuck two fingers at different points and brought them together.

“What about it?”

“The network, the thing that controls everything. Uretiaculus. It means matrix. It’s here, somewhere near the gate.” She got up and John followed along the edge of the barrier to the gate. He had to stop a few paces from the back of the gate to watch as Elizabeth moved around the area looking for some sign of a control matrix. “Why are you and your genes always on the wrong side?” she said half jokingly. John moved off without saying a word and she watched him as he stopped by Mara for a moment. She was sat demurely on a boulder along the far side of the barrier from the gate, she turned as John spoke to her and then got up and walked over to Elizabeth. It wasn’t until the woman had reached her that she realised what John had just done. Mara was possibly the only other person there with the ATA gene.

It took several minutes of Mara wandering aimlessly around the area before the matrix appeared. John paced along the edge of the barrier watching as the young queen moved around the area and it wasn’t until she was ready to give up and headed for John that the matrix broke through the ground between her and John on the other side of the gate.

The rumble subsided a little before picking up again, Elizabeth staggered backwards watching as the matrix node surfaced and several components of it extended out ready for use. Mara took several steps backwards with her hands up showing that she didn’t want to touch anything before the matrix made a strange noise and the barrier between her and John shimmered and flickered.

Moving closer, and letting Mara move away, Elizabeth stopped next to the device and reached a hand out carefully towards the barrier. There was no pressure to stop and the forcefield didn’t respond to her action. A brow raised, John reached out a hand just as carefully and managed to take hold of Elizabeth.

“That was…” John started.

“Too easy,” Elizabeth finished. John nodded his agreement and took a step forwards as if he was still going to walk into the barrier. When he managed to make it through and over the line of paper along the ground, he stepped around the matrix to have a look at the panels on the top. Elizabeth joined him, looking down at the map of the island that was lit up on the top.

“That,” John said, pointing to a blue dot to their right. “Is where Beanti was injured.” He tapped the dot and a small menu appear to one side. “Deactivate,” he read as he tapped the button. 

“Thought you only knew numbers,” Elizabeth said, attempting hard to keep her tone even and not show him she was surprised as well as impressed.

“You must be having a positive effect on me.” He said with a smile. “Don’t tell my dad.”

“The barrier’s down,” Ronon said, stepping up beside them. “Teyla’s gonna try the gate again, get Beckett here.” Elizabeth nodded her thanks to him and watched him move back to Teyla’s side as she started to dial.

“Do you think the ring,” Elizabeth asked, running a finger around the circle in that overlapped their injured guess and where they stood. “Is the field's current location?”

“Yeah,” John said with a nod and tapped at the ring, the menu they expected didn’t appear, but the ring shifted slightly so John took hold of it and moved it so it was around the clearing they were standing in. As he let go, the gate behind them activated and the ground beneath them shook violently and everyone was knocked down as the defencive system re-aligned with the new barrier location.

As John helped Elizabeth back to her feet, they could hear Teyla putting the call through to Atlantis. John turned back to the device, looking for a way to deactivate all the defences and Elizabeth moved back over to their guests as they got back on their feet.

She stopped in front of Minister Alduran. “Help is on the way for Beanti,” she said and he gave a short nod of thanks.

“I may have over exaggerated.” he said calmly before running a hand over his bald head. “You have put a lot of work into this project and my people will be here to see it completed.”

“Mine too,” Nola said to her left. A chorus of agreement went around the group as the gate began to dial in.

“Thank you,” she said. “Shall we continue our talks and leave the guards here to deal with everything else?”

They agreed again and headed back to the tent. Elizabeth turned back to John, he gave her an encouraging smile as she let out a puff of exhausted air and then followed everyone back to the table.


End file.
